FAA to Strengthen Airline Safety Rules

Spurred by the fatal Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, New York, in February, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) plans to tighten its regulations, coming up with new flight and rest rules for airlines and requiring that airlines obtain all available FAA pilot records, among other actions. Denver will play host to one of a series of 10 regional safety forums, where the FAA hopes to discuss new practices that it wants airlines to adopt by July 31. Read the Denver Post article here.

In a June 24 press release, the FAA claimed that it would establish an Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) to develop recommendations for an FAA rule by September 1. On the FAA's website you can find synopses of airplane accidents such as the Colgan Air crash. You can find current FAA regulations here.

Want more resources? See our guide to Transportation.

G8 Summit Begins in Italy

The Group of Eight (G8) summit began today in the earthquake-damaged city of L'Aquila, Italy. Representatives from member countries Canada, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States--as well as the European Union--met to discuss the global economy, international trade, climate change, assistance to developing countries, food safety, water access, world health, and international politics. See the official site of the 2009 summit for an agenda of events, summaries of the main issues to be discussed, and a survey seeking public comment on the role of the G8 and governance.

This article in the Washington Post explains that the G8 summit venue was moved from the luxury Italian resort of La Maddalena, Italy, to draw attention to reconstruction efforts in L'Aquila, which was hit by a major earthquake in April. For more details about the G8, take a look at the comprehensive G8 Information Centre created by the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto.

Looking for additional resources on international resources? Check out our guide.

Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports

Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a research agency of Congress and writes reports at Congress' request. These short reports (usually 10-40 pages long) cover recent topics of concern. This week brings us reports on the supreme court, homeland security, Iran, and more. Although these reports are in the public domain, there is no central database available to the public. To get a copy of a CRS report you can request it from your senator or representative. This list is compiled from CRS reports discovered by OpenCRS:

• Afghanistan and Pakistan Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs), H.R. 1318/H.R. 1886/H.R. 2410 and S. 496: Issues and Arguments
• Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy
• Afghanistan: Presidential and Parliamentary Elections
• America COMPETES Act and the FY2010 Budget
• Chile: Political and Economic Conditions and U.S. Relations
• China's Currency Peg: A Summary of the Economic Issues
• Climate Change: The Role of the U.S. Agriculture Sector
• District of Columbia Appropriations for FY2004
• El Salvador: Political, Economic, and Social Conditions and Relations with the United States
• Employment-Based Health Coverage and Health Reform: Selected Legal Considerations
• Geospatial Information and Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Current Issues and Future Challenges
• Honduran-U.S. Relations
• Human Rights in China: Trends and Policy Implications
• Iraq: U.S. Regime Change Efforts and Post-War Governance
• Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy
• Jordan: U.S. Relations and Bilateral Issues
• Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Analysis of Selected Opinions
• Landsat and the Data Continuity Mission
• Leave Benefits in the United States
• Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program: Oversight Issues and Options for Congress
• North Korean Counterfeiting of U.S. Currency
• Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues
• Security Classification Policy and Procedure: E.O. 12958, as Amended
• Sri Lanka: Background and U.S. Relations
• Thailand: Background and U.S. Relations
• The 2009 H1N1 "Swine Flu" Outbreak: An Overview
• The Budget Resolution and Spending Legislation
• The Global Financial Crisis: Increasing IMF Resources and the Role of Congress
• The Global Peace Operations Initiative: Background and Issues for Congress
• The National Security Council: An Organizational Assessment
• The United Arab Emirates Nuclear Program and Proposed U.S. Nuclear Cooperation

Interested in historical CRS reports? If you are here at the Boulder campus, check out the LexisNexis Congressional database, which has reports back to 1916.

Not on campus, but still want access to additional reports? The library has a guide linking to various additional sources of CRS reports.

Climate Change and National Parks

I love national parks and lucky me I live in a state with four national parks and a whole bunch of other cool national park sites, trails and monuments (check 'em out here). Now just last month I went up to Glacier National Park in Montana and got to thinking about climate change and how it will effect these parks. Glacier National Park estimates that by 2030 they will no longer have any glaciers in the park ("Glaciers/Glacier Features"). (The picture to the left is of Grinnel Glacier covered with a little bit of snow.)

Paul Ollig, who blogs on science at Glacier National Park, just posted on a new program from NASA and the National Park Service ("NPS") on climate change and how it will effect national parks. The first episode is on Glacier National Park and the second is on Everglades National Park. To learn more about this program, check out the Earth to Sky web site which is a collaboration of NPS and NASA.

If you want more information on climate change, check out the library's guide.

Construction Spending, Employment and Other Indicators

It has been a while since we did one of those economic indicator posts and today's various releases seemed like a good time to talk about numbers.

First, numbers from the government. Today brings us construction spending for May 2009, which was down .9 percent from April, which according to the New York Times is "nearly double the 0.5 percent drop that economists expected" (Sharp Drop in Construction Spending in May). Yesterday we got the new metropolitan employment and unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Those numbers showed "unemployment rates were higher in May than a year earlier in all 372 metropolitan areas" (from the press release).

The major news organizations have also been talking about a report from the firm Automatic Data Processing that show private employment decreasing 473,000 over June (a later number then the BLS numbers mentioned above).

Want to read a discussion of these various releases and what they mean? Check out the Wall Street Journal's "Private Sector Sheds 473,000 Jobs."

Still not enough? Check out the various library guides on business and economic topics.